In his personal habits, too,
In his personal habits, too, he was as different as possible from other
men. He prided himself on being descended from Hercules, and he affected
a style of dress and a general air and manner in accordance with the
savage character of this his pretended ancestor. His features were
sharp, his nose was arched and prominent, and he wore his hair and beard
very long--as long, in fact, as he could make them grow. These
peculiarities imparted to his countenance a very wild and ferocious
expression. He adopted a style of dress, too, which, judged of with
reference to the prevailing fashions of the time, gave to his whole
appearance a rough, savage, and reckless air. His manner and demeanor
corresponded with his dress and appearance. He lived in habits of the
most unreserved familiarity with his soldiers. He associated freely with
them, ate and drank with them in the open air, and joined in their noisy
mirth and rude and boisterous hilarity. His commanding powers of mind,
and the desperate recklessness of his courage, enabled him to do all
this without danger. These qualities inspired in the minds of the
soldiers a feeling of profound respect for their commander; and this
good opinion he was enabled to retain, notwithstanding such habits of
familiarity with his inferiors as would have been fatal to the influence
of an ordinary man.
In the most prosperous portion of Antony's career--for example, during
the period immediately preceding the death of Caesar--he addicted himself
to vicious indulgences of the most open, public, and shameless
character. He had around him a sort of court, formed of jesters,
tumblers, mountebanks, play-actors, and other similar characters of the
lowest and most disreputable class. Many of these companions were
singing and dancing girls, very beautiful, and very highly accomplished
in the arts of their respective professions, but all totally corrupt and
depraved. Public sentiment, even in that age and nation, strongly
condemned this conduct. The people were pagans, it is true, but it is a
mistake to suppose that the formation of a moral sentiment in the
community against such vices as these is a work which Christianity alone
can perform. There is a law of nature, in the form of an instinct
universal in the race, imperiously enjoining that the connection of the
sexes shall consist of the union of one man with one woman, and that
woman his wife, and very sternly prohibiting every other. So that there
has probably never been a community in the world so corrupt, that a man
could practice in it such vices as those of Antony, without not only
violating his own sense of right and wrong, but also bringing upon
himself the general condemnation of those around him.
